Qualified as an advanced motorist, with professional training in Motor Vehicle Engineering, John has built The Journey for one purpose and one purpose only: this sleek beast is built to be ridden. A BMW created for the adrenaline of the ride, The Journey is streamlined to its exclusive purpose. Unapologetically shedding the weight of lights and even a stand, The Journey requires a booster battery to start it from cold, it 'idles' at 1800 rpm and has total loss ignition. It will run on pump fuel - if you flick the switch to ignition map 'B', but it's natural diet is Sunoco 102 race fuel. That's not the problem it seems (as long as you can afford £20/gallon), because you'll run out of sparks before you run out of petrol. Maximum range is about 70 miles before the battery, and hence the ignition, dies - easily enough for a weekend on the track. In short, you only get on this bike when you want to ride. You go out, you ride and satisfied you come home. Then all that's left to do is sit and bask in admiration this one of a kind build, whilst the adrenalin levels in your system return to normal. A connoisseur's bike it's no surprise that The Journey caught the attention of Brad Pitt when John discussed the budding project with him on the set of 2014's WWII film Fury. Pitt's bike collection, selected with global reach, is nothing less than epic. Pitt invests in the best and The Journey was set to rendezvous its way among the gems of his collection. An arrangement was made to fly the bike out in 2015 onto the set of War Machine in Abu Dhabi for Pitt's attention. As fate would have it, the excess of 700 hours of work required for the bikes transformation, from a tidy well used Airhead 1984 BMW R80 ST, to a pinnacle concept bike, means timing has freed this bike for a fresh destiny; The Journey is ready for its new owner. The dream of a 1980's race bike, long-retired, then rescued and resurrected as a sunny Sunday road bike in now a reality. Beginning with the initial impulse to design an 'adventure road bike', a bit like a Paris-Dakar replica but with standard height suspension, a radical rethink has drastically upped the game. There are a lot of 'Paris-Dakar replicas' about and some of them are very good indeed. In fact HPN, who built those desert racers for BMW, still build such bikes and they are considered the gold standard. John's focus on paralleling the historical highs of BMW's competition glory pushed The Journey's design into new territory. An imitation of the Paris-Dakars, nor any other kind of wannabe racer, was too low a bar for this project. This machine reaches beyond the confines of a real racer and oozes style to boot. What has been crafted here is an Eighties-tech with a bit more polish than a race bike might have had - and road legal – truly a real life fantasy.

The frame itself took 80 hours to modify to its present state. Stripped and bead-blasted, all non[1]essential brackets were removed and it was extensively braced. The engine mounts were moved forwards 25mm and upwards 45mm for weight distribution and ground clearance below those The Journey expensively and extensively hand-ported cylinder heads. Additional diagonal braces were welded in - a move which necessitated making the lower frame members detachable in order to get the motor and gearbox in and out. New mounts were welded on to accommodate the custom rear-set controls, bodywork, electrics panel, etc. The build spec is unique in a road going airhead BMW. The tricked up frame is complemented by reworked standard forks with Race Tech cartridge emulators, linear rate springs and reduced travel. These are stiffened by a FlatRacer brace and topped by a Toaster Tan yoke. Note the custom fabricated preload adjusters. A Harrison 6-pot brake calliper acts on a fully-floating PFM rotor. At the rear, a made to order Wilbers 633 shock controls the original Monolever swing arm - the only component that has not been altered in some way. Wheels are original but the powder[1]coated rims and hubs are connected by stainless spokes. A custom built rear subframe holds the Ducati Imola replica seat unit and its, thinly padded, aluminium seat base with an Alcantara cover - a nod to the overall quality of the bike. Another Ducati Imola item is the half fairing and, linking the two surprisingly well, is a slightly reshaped BMW R45/65 tank fitted with a high-flow Pingel fuel tap. The motor is a gem. Richie Moore builds the fastest and most durable BMW airhead motors in the world. He has stated that there is no other street BMW with a motor of this specification. It’s 980 cc cylinders are fed by a brace of Dellorto PHMs though reworked heads. The bottom end is balanced and special pistons raise the compression ratio to just over 11:1. A race cam contributes to the estimated 85-90 bhp at the rear wheel. A trip to the dyno will confirm this in due course. Welded-in fittings feed the oil cooler and, for weight-saving and appearance sake, the engine is flat-topped. A total-loss MSD racing ignition system supplies the sparks. The exhaust system, hand-built from stainless steel starts with oversized headers and finishes at 2" diameter as it flows into the single, loud, race silencer. The rebuilt gearbox features higher 1st and 2nd gears to give closer ratios and the 'cheese grater' above it gives an added element of stiffness to the engine/frame assembly. The hand controls are mounted on exquisite Woodcraft clip-ons and the brake lever/master cylinder and clutch lever are Brembo RCS. The foot controls are Harris Performance items mounted on handmade back plates and connected by custom linkages. Custom and handmade details abound, all drain and level plugs are wired for track use and there's an oil breather bottle/catch tank too. The bodywork is secured by Dzus fasteners and comes off in seconds. The Journey If you want more details of the build, you could look up the thread that followed the build on the well known UKGSers site. It was titled ‘Dogbytes R80ST build’ and at last time of checking, it had more views than ANY other thread on there. The Journey's figure of 90 bhp at the back wheel combined with a dry weight of 160kg is enough to make this bike very lively indeed. If you're fortunate enough to have the means to keep a bike purely to ride, why not have the best, one built purely to be ridden. This bike is for those who love The Journey.